


No Repeats or Hesitations

by Arya_Greenleaf



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:33:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha isn't answering the phone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Repeats or Hesitations

Clint couldn't help but be worried. He knew it was probably foolish of him, but he couldn't help it. She can take care of herself. He repeated it like a mantra, over and over in his head. She hadn't been the one to be subjected to extra-terrestrial, gamma wave mind control. She was intact and uncompromised. He was the one they had to worry about. He was the one who was constantly feeling like there we're worms crawling through his brain. He was the one the voices just wouldn't stop shouting at. Not that he ever told his SHIELD-mandated therapist about any of that. He didn't want people thinking he was crazy. He thought she might know, even if he never said it out loud. She always seemed to know everything, sometimes before he said or felt it himself.

But now she wasn't answering her phone. Personal cell, house phone... Clint had even called her agency phone. If she didn't answer her door, he was going to call the line that would ring in her office. Maybe she had just decided to work late? She had been in the middle of preparing for a solo mission somewhere in some country that was mostly ice. He'd brought her the most ostentatious fur hat he could find just for the occasion. She'd given him a sharp but playful backhand across the shoulder in response when he put it down on her desk. Only she could convey layers of thanks and love and appreciation and knowing in such a simple gesture.

The doorman nodded and smiled when he opened the door for Clint. He was pretty sure that doorman had seen it all. He looked ancient, like he'd been there since the first foundations of the old building had been laid. Clint couldn't help but wonder what the man thought on the occasions that she turned up at all hours of the day and night, bloodied and bruised, from whatever mission she'd finished. 

It wasn't often that she ever bore outward, physical signs of a fight. She was too quick, too slippery, to good at improvising. He envied that of her. He was good with his arrows. He was pretty good with hand to hand, too. For the most part. He was forever coming home with blackened eyes and abraded knuckles. He didn't have her patience if he didn't have a now in his hands--he just wanted to get in and get out.

Clint got off of the elevator and walked down the hall to her apartment. He lifted his fist to rap on the door, "Natasha?" The door slid open with the gentle force of his knock. Every red flag went up. The emergency sirens in his head we're shrieking louder than the voices ever got.

Clint edged silently into the apartment. Nothing looked out of place as he systematically cleared the rooms. Every muscle froze when he heard a choked sob from the bathroom he was about to enter. He eased the door open. "Nah--"

Natasha was sitting in the tub in her underwear and a tee shirt. The water came up to her waist. "What did you do?" Her hands were shaking as she lowered them down into the water, it pinkened in a slowly spreading cloud. Only Natasha, even in this state, could have such control over what went on in her body, could keep her heart rate slow and steady. Clint could see old marks on her thighs and through the thin white cotton over her stomach made see-though by the water.

She made a choked sound and looked up at him. "There was too much red. My ledger was too full of it."

Clint tightened his jaw and bent down to heft her body out of the water. She didn't fight him. He didn't think it had gotten this bad. Evidently she'd learned to keep as much from him as she kept from SHIELD. "You can't wipe out red with more red. You have to put fresh pages in. Soaking the old ones doesn't help." He wasn't a religious man, but he could only pray that she hadn't cut deep enough and that the ambulance would get there soon.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to say, "I hope everyone enjoyed it" but that just feels wrong.
> 
> My experience with Black Widow is from Iron Man and Avengers. We really don't get to know all that much about her as a person. I feel like someone with her background would have far deeper issues than the average-joe. Natasha also doesn't seem like one to ask for help or admit she needs it. She's clearly close to Clint, but does she really let him into her world and her heart? This was my exploration of that.
> 
> As ever, thank you for reading and for giving feedback.


End file.
